A constructional analysis of digo yo in Peninsular Spanish

Abstract

This paper examines the variable functions of the clausal construction digo yo (DY) ‘I say’ in contemporary Peninsular Spanish. A corpus-based analysis shows pendulation between a communicative DY, which introduces past quotes, and a metacommunicative DY, which functions as a comment clause. In initial position, DY resembles a matrix clause, however, its subjectverb inversion produces a backgrounding effect which renders the conjunction que (‘that’) unnecessary and favours a parenthetical analysis of DY. In medial and final positions DY is an evidential/epistemic comment clause which overlaps with other epistemic comment clauses (e.g. creo yo ‘I believe’, pienso yo ‘I think’). In order to provide a unified account of the different uses of DY, a constructional approach is taken. In line with Van Bogaert (2010) and Kaltenböck (2010, 2013), the formal and functional features of DY are explained through a constructional network. A hierarchical network captures its links to the communicative construction, while its analogical connections to other epistemic constructions are captured in a horizontal network (Traugott, 2018).